Las Cruces City Hall (Photo by Heath Haussamen)
‘Now that I have been found not guilty… some apologies are in order,’ the PAC’s treasurer says
A controversial political action committee didn’t violate any city ordinance when it failed to report to the city that it had raised money by telling people it was for the Las Cruces municipal election, Clerk Esther Martinez announced Wednesday.
Martinez wrote in a letter to activist Greg Lennes, who filed the complaint against Jobs for Las Cruces Political Action Committee, that she determined “that there has been no violation of the Las Cruces Municipal Code.” She wrote that her determination came after the PAC’s treasurer, David Roewe, provided a response to Lennes’ complaint. The letter provided no details.
Martinez was not immediately available to share the reasoning behind her determination.
Lennes was not pleased with the lack of details in the letter Martinez sent him Wednesday.
“I’m really disappointed because I never saw an explanation,” he said.
Roewe, on the other hand, touted Martinez’s decision in a widely distributed e-mail. He also criticized the media for being “so easily duped by these obvious types of smoke and mirror manipulations.”
“It was front page news when Greg Lennes made a bogus charge against myself and the PAC. Now that I have been found not guilty, will it get coverage at all?” he wrote in the e-mail. “Will the damage it did to our endorsed candidates be repaired. … Some apologies are in order.”
Asked what information he provided to Martinez before she made her determination, Roewe responded by e-mail that he showed her the PAC’s income and expenses.
Wading into a gray area
The PAC came under fire before the Nov. 3 city election after it raised more than $20,000 at an August fundraiser by telling people the money would be spent on the city election. After the group failed to file a campaign finance report on Oct. 22, Roewe contended that, regardless of how the committee raised the money, the committee planned to use it for county and state races in the 2010 election.
The PAC filed a report of contributions and expenditures with the secretary of state’s office on Oct. 8.
At the time, Martinez said the committee had waded into a gray area in which it might be in violation of the municipal code by not filing a finance report with the city. If the group raised money to help city council candidates, Martinez said at the time, it “would have to report it to me.”
Such reports are required from any group that “raises, collects, expends or contributes money or any other things of value for the purpose of supporting or opposing a candidate in a municipal election,” according to the city’s election code.
A group can be fined $50 per day for every day it’s late in filing a report.
Asked shortly after Lennes filed his complaint if it was true that the committee had not raised or spent money on the city election, Roewe said, “That’s correct.”
But then he added this: “We raised money. Did we use the city election as a gathering ground? Oh hell yes. … We used it as a rallying point,” he said. “You do whatever you have to do to raise funds. … This is a call for the business community to get up.”
And a Sept. 14 fundraising letter indicates that the cash raised at the August fundraiser was “for the upcoming election” – in reference to the city election. The letter also solicited additional funds for that election.
New finance report coming in December
Roewe is the executive director of the Building Industry Association of Southern New Mexico (BIA), which endorsed three city council candidates — Gil Jones, Dolores Archuleta and Jim Harbison. Lennes supported those candidates’ opponents – Gill Sorg, Olga Pedroza and Sharon Thomas. The three backed by Lennes won.
There’s little doubt that Roewe’s PAC will have to file a finance report with the city in early December. After the controversy began – and after the first campaign finance report was due to the city in October – the PAC purchased ads in the Las Cruces Sun-News raising questions about the trustworthiness of Pedroza, Sorg and Thomas.
The ad stated that “Some vocal supporters of candidates Pedroza, Sorg, and Thomas… have asked when our local PAC will spend money in this year’s campaigns. The answer is NOW.”
Lennes has said publicly that he suspects the PAC was financially assisting the three candidates supported by the BIA. Today, he said he will wait to see what the PAC’s December report states before deciding what to do next.